There's no doubt the Assad regime is terrible, horrible, all around bad. But didn't we learn that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" was bullshit back when we supported the Taliban against the USSR in Afghanistan?
Beyond doubt, these next few days will be the most crucial of the Obama presidency (The Independent)
A good picture, as everybody knows, is worth a thousand words. The one that appeared on the front page of The New York Times last Thursday could also be worth a hundred congressional votes.
Extracted from a video smuggled out of Syria, the frame showed gunmen about to kill seven prostrate and terrified army soldiers, their backs bared and beaten, their hands tied behind their backs, as a rebel commander ranted a bloody oath of revenge. Such are the Islamist extremists that the US would in effect be supporting, the picture declared with a starkness no words could match, if the Obama administration went ahead with its threatened military strikes against the Assad regime.